


Whatever Happens

by prototype_malice



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Boys Being Boys, Character Study, Found Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, bros being bros, cishets? in my fic?? no <3, just kidding it's gay, stan willex for clear skin, you know for depth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:53:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27096853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prototype_malice/pseuds/prototype_malice
Summary: Alex hated sunflowers.
Relationships: Alex & His Parents, Alex & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie, Alex & Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Past Alex/Luke Patterson (Julie and The Phantoms) - Relationship
Comments: 8
Kudos: 171





	Whatever Happens

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning: there are some emotions involved. I'm going to come for your feels with a knife. Enjoy!

People grew like Mama’s sunflowers in the little patch of life out front she called a garden.

Sure, they got taller. They got big, too, bigger than he was when he asked her about her sunflowers around four years old. Brighter, more attention-grabbing.

“I grow them because they grow anywhere, Alex,” she explained. “They’re weeds, technically, but they’re pretty enough to call them flowers anyways.”

Alex hated sunflowers. Still does. They’re so aggressive, so big, like leeches sucking all the focus out of the room with their obnoxiously bright color. And, like weeds, they’re stubborn, only content to grow one way and always making a fit of things if they can’t.

Weeds are easy to grow, not to maintain.

Sometimes people put the tiniest of things in places they don’t belong, and they just keep growing unchecked, until they’re so big the pruning shears can’t cut through them.

How do you tell a boy his parents don’t love him because of something he said?

Always trustworthy, that boy. Everyone in the neighborhood knew Alex, loved Alex, trusted Alex, because even if no one in the neighborhood had much money they all had God and each other. And it even worked, for some of them.

Alex’s parents never wanted his door closed when he was hanging out in his room with female friends, and yet it seemed they always wanted the two to try and close the door and be mischievous anyways. Curious, that wanting.

He kissed a boy on the evening of his fifteenth birthday.

He was out with friends, which meant Luke, Reggie, and Bobby, except Luke and Reggie were somewhere together screwing around and Bobby was somewhere on his own, also screwing around. It was at a club, actually. God only knows how they got in, but it was the nineties, and it was Los Angeles, so it worked out. Alex stepped out the back door for a minute to get some fresh air, needing a minute away from the music and the people, and there was a boy a little older than him in the alley, leaning against the brick back wall of the building opposite, and, come to think of it, probably stoned out of his mind. Drawn to the unfamiliarity of rule-breaking, Alex struck up a conversation with him, and, well, that was the story of his first kiss. Jonah, his name was. He never saw Jonah again.

The evening of his sixteenth birthday, he told his parents. Just a little while after they’d all had a bit of cake to celebrate, sat down in the living room and sobered up from the sugar and the excitement enough to say “I’m gay” and be done with it.

Done with a lot of things, actually. They kicked him out.

Somehow, he ended up back at Bobby’s garage without getting hit by a car or something on the way, all his clothes and his few personal things in his backpack, tears down his face and a big, ugly bruise on his cheek.

He wasn’t crying because he was sad. He was crying because he was so confused, so infinitely uncomprehending of how they could love him so much one minute and hate him the next. What had he done that was so vile and wrong?

Maybe he shouldn’t have asked about the sunflowers, all those years ago. Should have just kept his mouth shut and not questioned why people did the things they did, should have just gone with it and been happy. There was something he could have done differently. There had to be.

He stayed with Bobby after that. His mom was dead, his dad was never home from whatever his job was that took him all over the world, so there was no one to kick him out but Bobby himself, and while the guy was a tool sometimes, he had good moments. Alex didn’t have to explain much when he showed up on his birthday crying his eyes out, Bobby just let him in and understood.

Another thing he did on the evening of his sixteenth birthday was kiss Luke.

It was a pretty terrible kiss, looking back on it. He was still a total mess, only a few hours having passed since he got disowned for being gay, and they were hanging out on the couch in the garage, talking about anything else. Alex just went for it, grabbed his face and kissed him like it was the last thing he’d ever do.

Luke put a hand on his chest and pushed him back, and Alex wasn’t quite sure he knew what to do after that.

“Not right now. Not like this,” Luke said. “If you feel the same way tomorrow, we can talk.”

Alex definitely cried after that, but in a good way. It was probably for the best. He’d more than exhausted his supply of sad tears, and yet they just kept coming.

He still felt the same way the next day, and even though he didn’t in six months they had a pretty good run, him and Luke. It occurred to him once that it was probably getting back at his parents, too. They’d hate for him to be dating Luke, with all his beanies and his chains and his electric guitar, if he had to date a boy.

Everyone knew almost instantly, not because anyone told anyone else but because that was how they were. Bobby made his usual jokes, acting like he was the mom of the band, telling them to leave the door open and all, and Reggie just high-fived Alex and asked if they wanted to watch Star Wars again. They didn’t, but they did it for him.

Parents weren’t always family. Alex knew that well enough, because he had a family already, Luke, Reggie, and Bobby, and people usually just had the one.

He died, and it didn’t change them. Or maybe it did.

Julie asked, one day, if he knew what happened to his parents, if he wanted to know. He said no, and she said okay, and then asked if he wanted to catch up on some pop culture references with a teenage romcom/drama movie marathon, which was also the story of how Alex was introduced to Mean Girls. They never talked about his parents again.

It was amazing, really, how it only took twenty-five years for him not to care. He thought it would take at least a lifetime.

But, then again, as he looked around the studio, the last one awake in their impromptu movie marathon of the new Star Wars sequels, Julie lying on Luke’s shoulder, Reggie under Luke’s arm, Willie curled up into Alex’s side, head on his chest, maybe it was just all those moments that seemed to last forever.

People grew like sunflowers. Together.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, feel free to praise/roast/yell at me in the comments. If you leave kudos, know that I'd die for you. Appreciate all y'all comments too, even the incomprehensible yelling, makes me feel vv validated. Also, check out my Tumblr, @capncrunchybara, for some more JATP content (by "content" I mean "memes and also rambling" but you can yell at me about it too), or my other Ao3 fics, you know, like the Luke one where I also came out here with the intention to hurt y'all and (from what I've heard) succeeded. Stay safe, watch JATP again, pet your dog, and have a great day!


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